IRS Refund Delays

Posted on February 5, 2014

Have you already filed your federal income tax return? Are you expecting a refund? Well you’re not alone…each year millions of taxpayers eagerly await refund season- it’s easy to understand, with the average IRS refund totaling a couple thousand dollars. Many people have earmarked that money for major purchases, bill payment, or vacations…not that I’m recommending doing that! Whatever the case may be, each year around this time there are a lot of Americans waiting for refunds with let’s say, not just a little bit of impatience.

Why People Get Nervous About IRS Refund Delays

So, when IRS Refund delays start happening, you can probably guess what goes on in the minds of people who have already spent their refund, so to speak. It makes them very nervous! What I’m here to tell you is stop being nervous. The IRS processes tax returns in a very different manner nowadays. It causes more unexpected refund delays, as a matter of fact.

You see, in the “old days”, before the IRS worried so much about identity theft and fraud, and before this business of stealing IRS refunds really got out of hand, an IRS refund delay really did mean something bad. It usually meant that something was wrong with your return, or at least something fishy.

Why People Shouldn’t Get Nervous About IRS Refund Delays

But now that’s not true anymore. With the IRS’s new returns processing systems, almost anything can flag a return as “fishy” and cause it to be held up for further examination. And as you guessed, this causes IRS Refund delays in a big way. Heck, even a typo will slow down processing of your return, hence a delay in your refund.

So, the word is: don’t panic if your refund hasn’t arrived in the time window you thought it would. Just because it’s delayed, doesn’t mean there’s a serious problem. It just means they want to check it again. Use the IRS Refund Tracker at IRS.gov to track your own tax return, so refund delays won’t cause you quite so much panic. It’s located here and don’t use any other website other than the IRS or you will become part of the problem…identity theft!